M. Christine Watson, American
Grounded, 2019
A motionless boat, ownerless, sits amongst tall salt marsh grass. This boat’s purpose, perhaps to be a crabber’s main mode of transportation, now reduced to a grounded grim reminder of the effects of sea level rise on the Chesapeake Bay’s Tangier Island. This photograph evokes uncertainty and an empty feeling, what will become of the people living here if this worsens? The problem may not be explicitly apparent in this photograph, but upon further observation this lone boat paints a broader picture. Watson encourages viewers to take notice to not just the disappearance of Tangier Island, but other communities alike to this slowly sinking island, where climate change has uprooted people’s lives and left husks of the community that thrived there. Label by Logan Edwards